1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a fingerprint identification apparatus and method that use templates to identify a read fingerprint image.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, a technique is known as a fingerprint-image identification method. The technique extracts, from recorded fingerprint images, a plurality of partial images (templates) sufficiently representing the fingerprints, performs matching of the templates with an image read for checking, and determines, based on positional relationships of highly matched points detected in each of the templates, whether or not the read image matches each of the recorded fingerprint images.
In the above technique of the related art, when a large number of templates are used, and a large number of highly matched points are detected, the number of combinations of the templates and the points greatly increases, thus causing a problem in that the processing requires a lot of time.
For example, when ten templates are used, and thirty highly matched points are detected for each of the templates, the total number of combinations is thirty to the tenth power, that is, approximately six million million.
In addition, when templates are broadly distributed in an image, and a change in finger shape is large, a problem occurs in that fingerprint identification performance greatly deteriorates.